Raspberry Pi: Anyone planning to get one?

I'm sure most of you have heard of it, but if not, it is a small ARM based board about the size of a credit card that will run linux. It is powerful enough to play HD video, run word processors, and play basic games. It has HDMI, USB, Ethernet, audio jacks, composite video out, SD slot, and is powered by a 5 v usb mini jack. All for 25 dollars.

The purpose of the device is to allow 3rd world countries to purchase the small devices and teach their people how to use computers and access the internet as well as giving a cheap device to students to learn to program.

I am definitely going to pick one up when they come out.

The PCBs just arrived, so it will probably be ready to ship soon!
http://www.sharkyforums.com/images/i.../2011/12/4.jpg

Read more here:
http://www.raspberrypi.org/faqs

You guys going to buy one when they hit the streets? Can't wait to custom fab a case for it :)

Also, it runs Quake 3 (1080p, 4xAA, max details) low fps, but still crazy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_mDuJuvZjI

It is supposedly as powerful as the first Xbox. My question though is, how fast does it SuperPi 32M? lol

This was the one where they're using the cost of selling them to the public to help offset the costs of sending them to other countries right?

I figure I'll pick one up to play with.

I wish the ports are built in, from the pictures it looks like you have to solder the pins to the ports.

I guess it is more flexiable, but I would rather it be already solder so I can plug and play



opps never mind:

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Please don’t worry: there is absolutely no soldering required in the finished product.

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I'm definitely interested in things like Raspberry Pi and Arduino. I think the biggest problem is a real lack of imagination on how to use them. That may have something to do with the lack of wireless, which has become something of a necessary feature.

The gaming application is really cool. It's a bit of the shame now, looking back on it, that so many early games were D3D and require an old version of Windows to run. I don't know that anyone will develop specifically to run on old hardware, but it would be amazing to play older spirte-based games on a $25 rig like this…if only they would run.

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Originally Posted by ImaNihilist

I'm definitely interested in things like Raspberry Pi and Arduino. I think the biggest problem is a real lack of imagination on how to use them. That may have something to do with the lack of wireless, which has become something of a necessary feature.

The gaming application is really cool. It's a bit of the shame now, looking back on it, that so many early games were D3D and require an old version of Windows to run. I don't know that anyone will develop specifically to run on old hardware, but it would be amazing to play older spirte-based games on a $25 rig like this…if only they would run.

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It runs linux, so you can get emulators for old sprite games to work.

or u can get something like this for $15
http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?pid=8197210

I actually did a review of this thing Six years ago...
http://www.geniv.com/kin/reviews/r_vgpocket/

Mine came in the mail today. Very small but well built. Thick pcb, nice connectors, and it is well marked. Didn't have a chance to hook it up but I am planning to mess with it more tomorrow. Im curious to see if it will stream 1080p.

I'm thinking of picking one up. I haven't really "messed around" with a computer in years because they're good enough at this point that I don't really need to, but this would be a fun and cheap platform to just have some silly fun with.

Im still waiting. Supposed to be here in June.

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Originally Posted by Timman_24

Mine came in the mail today. Very small but well built. Thick pcb, nice connectors, and it is well marked. Didn't have a chance to hook it up but I am planning to mess with it more tomorrow. Im curious to see if it will stream 1080p.

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Nice... pics please!! :D Mine won't get here till at least August... :(

http://img577.imageshack.us/img577/9346/img0278cv.jpg

Fired it up a few minutes ago. I installed the quick build of debian on an SD card and hooked up all the wires. Booted right up and went to the desktop. There was some issue with the resolution. My monitor said it was getting a 1080p signal, but there were black bars about 50-75px wide all around the screen. I tried forcing some HDMI parameters during bootup, but haven't figured it out yet.

There is some talk about people bringing netflix over to the raspberry pi. As of right now people are still scrambling to make beta builds of the needed software to use it as a HDPC/server archive. Basic functionality is there, such as surfing the net or programming, but it will be a while before the typical consumer will be able to do anything with it.

As for speed, it feels like an iPhone with a large screen. The internet works fine, not nearly as smooth as a PC but totally usable. I can't wait to see what people do with it. I highly doubt it will stream 1080p, but time will tell.

Did you get it from Allied Electronics?

I got it from RS. I ordered from farnell as well but haven't seen it yet.

I help out with an initiative to encourage school kids into science and technology so I fancy getting one of these for that although at the moment I'm not sure well best to use it in that role. I've been discussing it with someone else who is also part of the same system who has bought one and very keen on it who pointed out that these days computing skills taught at schools are Microsoft Office and similar, not programming as it was back in my day. Hence getting them started with a Pi that they can take home, work on themselves and bring back in the next week is appealing.

John

I'm not sure teaching kids low level programming makes all that much sense at this point. There are much more relevant ways to get them excited about Math, Science, and Engineering. It seems kind of like forcing kids to read Shakespeare and thinking that it'll make them appreciate literature, that's just not how it is. If the school already has normal computers in their budget I don't really see the use for Raspberry Pi except as an Arduino-like thing.

When I was in Middle School we had Lego Mindstorms (yeah I'm pretty young). That was great because we got to build Lego stuff, and then program it. Even those who weren't really into it understood the logic of "if (pressure sensor thinks the robot bumped into something) {turn a couple degrees and try going forward again}", and the kids who got really into it were able to make much more sophisticated stuff. The year after we did Mindstorms in Science class there was the option to take a programming class (basic Java stuff) and I think a decent number of kids signed up for it because they liked figuring out the logic stuff in Mindstorms. Then the year after the Java class there was a legit computer science class where we learned about actual algorithms, how various search/sort types work, why some are better than others, etc. People need to be eased into things, and giving them a terminal window first thing doesn't really do that.

Only a tiny fraction of kids will ever care about getting down and dirty with a command prompt. Teach kids how to use a computer to interface with a robot or make stuff show up on their iPads and you might have an actual audience that you can then show the more complicated things to.

I have a second generation mindstorms kit and my plan is to eventually get kids to interface the pi with it. I disagree strongly with your comments about programming, at the moment the only computing they do as part of the curriculum is Microsoft office whereas in my day we were taught how to program. That has had a serious effect on the number of those who graduate in computing as it's dropped by half since my time ten years ago. Programming however isn't any less important, I don't see why you think it isn't relevant as I think it is a more important skill now we have so many computing devices which still need programs written by programmers.

It's not programming in general that I'm opposed to in schools, it's low level programming (maybe a slightly more inclusive definition of low level programming than most people use). Teaching kids to do anything interesting at all in Java or C or whatever will occupy a whole class (time slot) for a school year. Teaching them to do interesting stuff in Mindstorms or some other fairly abstracted and very easy language takes only a few days and is likely to spark interest for more in depth stuff in some of the kids.

Are you trying to start a computing class or are you trying to wedge some computing into a science class? If it's the former you're right of course, and I misunderstood you in your previous post.

The other thing we did in school, at around age 12, was building our own websites, partially in some quasi-wysiwyg program that I can't remember the name of but also partially in raw html. Just about any topic was allowed, for example students who were in a band could make a website for that band, and the sites were hosted on the school's servers so they could be shared with friends and family. Unfortunately (in this case) the bar for what is accepted by people as a half decent website is so high now that it might be discouraging to students when after a few lessons all they really know how to do is hyperlinks and img tags and a few other basic things.

What I'm trying to say is that students' very first experiences with programming shouldn't be something where they will mess up because of a missing semicolon or misplaced curly brackets. Something like Mindstorms (maybe not the best example but I don't really know what else is out there these days) has logic and algorithms and problem solving and all the stuff that's fundamental to and interesting about programming, without the high learning curve of code getting in the way.

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Originally Posted by Steven P Jobs

I'm not sure teaching kids low level programming makes all that much sense at this point. There are much more relevant ways to get them excited about Math, Science, and Engineering. It seems kind of like forcing kids to read Shakespeare and thinking that it'll make them appreciate literature, that's just not how it is.

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The third world isn't as under-developed as some may think.

However, I do agree with you. The problem is, the west, the UK especially, are full of arrogant fools, who think they know how to solve other countries problems, how they should be educated, how they should live and their beliefs, when their own countries have massive problems of their own and severely dysfunctional societies.